The Times Sport - UK (2020-07-18)

Uefa Women’s Cup
(now called Champions
League) 2006-
This, with Arsenal, is the
best moment in my career,
for sure. I remember it like
it was yesterday. We had to
play two legs in a
Champions League final in
those days. Umea, from
Sweden, were our
opponents in the final and
they had incredible players
such as Marta and Ramona

20 2GS Saturday July 18 2020 | the times

ME AND MY MEDALS

Lianne Sanderson, 32, who has won

50 caps for England, talks Molly Hudson

through the highlights of her football career

1

Women’s World

Cup Bronze

medal 2015

It was quite a

traumatising

experience

after Laura

Bassett scored

an own goal in

the semi-final

against Japan.

We were

devastated for

her but we

bounced back.

When I came

on against

Germany in the

bronze-medal

match, and I

earned the

penalty for the

winning goal, it

was such a

great feeling.

As soon as

I turned the girl

[Germany’s

Tabea Kemme]

I knew she was

going to bring

me down and

then the rest is

Bachmann and they were

full-time professionals.

We went out for the

second leg (after winning

the first leg 1-0) in a very

un-Arsenal way, to try and

hold on to a lead. I almost

feel like my career was

done back to front, because

the things I’d done by the

time I was 18, winning the

Champions League, that’s

what people dream of for

their whole careers.

Juventus (won Serie A

and Coppa Italia) 2018-

19

I can’t thank Juventus

enough for actually

signing me when I

was injured. When I

was doing my rehab

in the gym, and I was

in with the likes of

Gianluigi Buffon and

Gonzalo Higuaín, it was

amazing. On the first day I

met Paulo Dybala.

It can be hard to change a

culture and prejudices

towards race and sexuality

in a country, and living in

Italy was hard, but the

Juventus fans were

absolutely fantastic, they

still write to me now and I

had success there, winning

i the league and cup.

GGGGGGGGGiGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

G

Patrick Kidd

THE TAILENDER

Chiefs giving

offence police

an axe to grind

Dedication of an

ageing croquet star

The baste is yet to

come from Hales

After recent items on longevity,

Chris Williams emailed to say that

the career spans of three players in

the Croquet Championship go back

to 1897. Trevor Williams played for

40 years, overlapping with

Humphrey Hicks, who won seven

times between 1928 and 1984, while

Stephen Mulliner has played every

year since 1977.

Croquet is not the most energetic

of sports but it requires stamina and

A couple of years ago, when Dom

Bess had slipped in the pecking order

of England spin bowlers, the

Somerset cricketer said he wanted to

end his career with lots of sweat and

champagne stains on his England

cap. It turns out the former fluid now

makes him our secret weapon.

With saliva now banned,

England players have to

rely on sweat to polish

the ball and James

Anderson revealed

that Bess produces

gallons of it. His

lower back is a

salty reservoir. In

the first Test, he

was put at mid-off

purely so the ball

could be given a good

basting under his shirt

on its way to the bowler.

Perhaps it is this quality that

could lead to a recall for Alex Hales.

The Notts opener has been out of

favour for a year after failing a drugs

test, but in 2016 it was Anderson

again, that student of sudoresis, who

revealed that Hales was “the

sweatiest man in world cricket”. Can

we exploit this? As Thomas Edison

almost said, getting swing is 1 per

cent inspiration and 99 per cent

perspiration.

A piece by The Onion, the American

satirical magazine, this week said

that the owners of the Washington

Redskins had bowed to pressure and

would change the American football

team’s name since the word had

become tainted and caused offence.

From now on they would be called

the DC Redskins.

The team have changed their

name before. They were founded in

1932 as the Boston Braves, a name

shared with the baseball team who

now play in Atlanta and have also

been criticised for cultural

appropriation. The Braves’ mascot,

Chief Noc-A-Homa, was retired in

1986 and they got rid of their cap

branding of a Native American

warrior in 2013. There is now a

campaign to ban their fans’

“Tomahawk Chop” war cry. The

perpetually offended will never rest.

At least there is a reason why

United States sports teams were

named after indigenous tribes.

Hiawatha hunted far from Clyst St

Mary but they do the Tomahawk

Chop at Sandy Park, too, where fans

of Exeter Chiefs wear feathered head

dresses and wave foam axes.

It seems harmless, if silly, but the

offence police are coming for them,

with a petition to rebrand the side

attracting 3,000 signatures.

Presumably the fez-wearing

Saracens fans will be next and then

someone will try to get Leicester

Tigers to stop exploiting an

endangered species and become the

Ferrets instead.

Fortunately my team, Blackheath,

have an unproblematic nickname.

“Come on Club,” a cry that dates

from 1858 when their only

opponents were Blackheath School,

can surely offend no one.

nerve to play it well for so long. Last

year I went to Eastbourne to watch

the World Championship, where I

saw the 65-year-old Mulliner lose a

quarter-final to a New Zealander 42

years his junior. Croquet is

becoming a young man’s

sport, he said, (the oldest

semi-finalist was 35)

but Mulliner still had

the desire to

compete.

“To strike one ball

on to another, right

in the middle, from

20 yards, takes a lot

of self-belief and

practice,” Mulliner,

whose daily routine

involves hitting 50 balls in a

row through a hoop, said.

“Fortunately,” he added, “I really

enjoy practice.” Long may he whack.

history, Fara

Williams

putting it away,

and we won the

bronze medal. It

was a fantastic

moment — the

first time we

had won a

medal with

England.

Western New York Flash NWSL Championship 2016

Moving to the United States ten years ago was the

best decision I ever made. I joined Western New

York Flash in 2016. When you win a

championship in America you all get a ring but

it is unique and it’s special to get one.

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Sanderson played two

matches in an injury-hit

season at Juventus

Photograph: Simon Dael for The Times

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